This many times.
This talk about lying to oneself. Just in case their is a deity that cares about human affairs, we should never lie to God, because we’d be fooling nobody but ourselves. And we should never, ever lie to ourselves, because we are so easy to fool. Interestingly, we know when we are lying to ourselves, because the truth will out in our actions. People pray for healing from diseases and afflictions that sometimes heal of their own accord. They do this even though studies of the effectiveness of prayer on speed of recovery show either no correlation or a negative correlation. But we do not pray for people to grow a new leg after one has been lost, or for someone dead for 5 years to be resurrected.
There is an interesting anecdote about the Abbot of Ampleforth, who appears to be one of the few of his faith that actually believes in Heaven and doesn’t just lie to himself about it. When notified by Cardinal Basil Hume that the Cardinal was dying, he wrote to his superior, “Congratulations! That’s brilliant news. I wish I was coming with you.” If we actually believed that our death would transport us to a place of divine bliss and reunion with all our long lost loved ones, we should all respond like that to news of death. But what do we hear at funerals for the faithful? Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Our actions give away what we really know in our hearts, no matter what tale we sell ourselves.
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